The data cited above presents interesting material on the question of the evolution of political parties, groupings, and tendencies among landowners and the bourgeoisie in the epoch of counter-revolution. As for democracy—both bourgeois (peasant) and working-class—the composition of the III and IV Dumas says almost nothing on the simple ground that the June Third system was deliberately constructed for the exclusion of democracy. Similarly, the "national" parties, that is, those not belonging to the "dominant" nationality, are specially oppressed and stifled by June 3rd.

Therefore, we shall single out only the Rights, Octobrists, and Russian liberals—parties firmly entrenched within the June Third system and shielded by it from democracy—and examine the changes within these parties.

From this it becomes clearly evident how the so-called "center" among the privileged strata is melting away and how their right and liberal wings are becoming stronger. It is interesting that the increase in liberals among landowners and the bourgeoisie proceeds faster than the growth of the Rights, despite the most extraordinary measures taken by the government to rig the elections in favor of the Rights.

There are people who, keeping these facts in mind, willingly speak grand words about the intensification of contradictions within the June Third system, about the coming triumph of moderate-bourgeois progressivism, and so forth. These people forget, in the first place, that if the number of liberals among landowners and especially among the bourgeoisie is growing, it is the right wing of the liberals—those who base their entire politics entirely upon "reconciliation" with the Rights—that is growing fastest of all. We shall speak of this in detail presently. In the second place, these people forget that the so-called "leftward movement of the bourgeoisie" is merely a symptom of the genuine leftward movement of democracy, which alone is capable of providing the driving forces for serious change in the regime. In the third place, these people forget that the June Third system is specially calculated to exploit, within very broad limits, the antagonism between liberal bourgeoisie and landowner reaction, given their far deeper common antagonism with all of democracy and with the working class in particular.

Furthermore. Our liberals like to depict the matter as if the defeat of the Octobrists was brought about by "election manipulation," which deprived of support this, allegedly, "party of the last governmental decree," and so on. The liberals themselves, of course, appear in this light as honest opposition, independent people, even as "democrats," whereas in reality the difference between someone like Maklakov and the Octobrists is entirely illusory.

Look at the changes that occurred between the III and IV Dumas, compared with the changes that occurred between the beginning and end of the III Duma. You will see that within the III Duma the Octobrist party lost a greater number of its members (28) than in the elections to the IV Duma (22). This does not mean, of course, that there was no "election manipulation"; it was conducted on the most reckless scale, particularly against democracy. But it means that apart from any election manipulation, apart even from governmental pressure and "politics" in general, there is taking place a process of party realignment among Russia's propertied classes—a process of separation of the right, serf-like-reactionary wing of counter-revolution from the liberal-bourgeois wing of that same counter-revolution.

The distinctions between individual groups and factions of the right-Octobrist Duma majority (the Rights, Nationalists, moderate-Rights, the "center," right Octobrists, and so on) are just as unstable, indefinite, accidental, often artificially rigged, as are the distinctions within the Octobrist-liberal majority (left Octobrists, Progressists, Kadets). What is characteristic of the epoch we are living through is not at all that government-dependent Octobrists are supposedly being displaced by an "independent" (as if Maklakov!) Constitutional Democrat. That is a stupid liberal fairy tale.

What is characteristic is that a process of formation of genuine class parties is taking place and, in particular, under the din of ostentatiously oppositional outcries and honeyed speeches about "reconciliation between authority and country," the consolidation of the counter-revolutionary liberal party is proceeding.

The most widespread liberal press in Russia employs all its efforts to obscure this process. Therefore we shall turn once again to exact data from Duma statistics. We must remember that, as with individual people, parties are to be judged not by their words but by their deeds. In fact, the Kadets and Progressists go together on all the most important matters, and both have gone with the Octobrists in both the III and IV Dumas and in the recent elections (Ekaterinoslav province: a bloc of Rodzianko with the Kadets!) on a whole series of questions.

Let us examine the data on these three parties:

We see a tremendous and steady decline among the Octobrists; a negligible decrease, then a small increase among the Kadets; a tremendous and steady rise among the Progressists, who have almost doubled in number over five years.

If we were to take 1908 data, as communicated by Mr. Milyukov in the "Rech Yearbook" for 1912, p. 77, the picture would be even much more striking. Mr. Milyukov reckons that in the III Duma in 1908 there were 154 Octobrists, 23 Progressists, and 56 Kadets. Compared with the IV Duma, this would give an entirely negligible increase in the number of Kadets and more than a doubling of the number of Progressists.

The Progressists in 1908 were more than twice as weak as the Kadets. Now the number of Progressists constitutes more than 80% of the number of Kadets.

There emerges, consequently, an indisputable fact: that in Russian liberalism during the counter-revolution (1908–1912), what is most characteristic is the tremendous growth of Progressivism.

But what are the Progressists?

Both in their composition and in their ideology, they are a cross between Octobrists and Kadets.

The Progressists in the III Duma were still called Peaceful Renovationists{173}, and one of their leaders, the counter-revolutionary nobleman Lvov, was a Kadet in the I Duma. In the III Duma the number of Progressists, as we have seen, increased from 25 to 36, that is, by 11 deputies; of these 11 deputies, 9 went over to the Progressists from other parties, namely: 1 from the Kadets, 2 from the moderate-Rights, 1 from the Nationalists, and 5 from the Octobrists.

The rapid growth of the Progressists among the political representatives of Russian liberalism and the success of "Landmarks" in "society"—these are two sides of one coin. The Progressists realized in practical politics what "Landmarks" preached in theory, spitting upon revolution, renouncing democracy, glorifying the filthy enrichment of the bourgeoisie as God's work on earth, and so on and so forth.

When the Kadet Maklakov holds forth about the reconciliation of authority with country, he merely hymns what the Progressists are actually doing.

The further we move away from 1905 and 1906, the clearer it becomes how right the Bolsheviks were then, exposing the Kadets at the moment of their greatest intoxication with their "victories," revealing the true essence of their party[41], which is now being laid bare ever more and more clearly by the entire course of events.

Russian democracy will not be able to win a single victory unless it decisively undermines the "prestige" of the Kadets among the masses. Conversely, the actual fusion of the Kadets with the Landmark supporters and Progressists is both one of the conditions and one of the symptoms of the consolidation and strengthening of democracy under the leadership of the proletariat.